By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

Atlantis staff asked to take vacation or temporary leave due to the Coral Towers’ closure will begin returning to work next week on September 8, the hotel union’s president said yesterday.

Darrin Woods, the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union chief told Tribune Business that workers will begin returning on Monday with those still impacted by ongoing renovations to be redeployed to other areas of the resort until the work is completed.

“Some of them will be going back to work as soon as September 8, others by the 30th,” said Mr Woods. He added that employees across most hotels are currently working reduced hours or fewer days due to the traditional fall slowdown.

“September is the slow month of the year, and so we have seen a decline in numbers and we have some areas that persons are working reduced days. You will find these things are happening across the spectrum of the industry so all of the hotels, you’ll find that they are working reduced days,” said Mr Woods.

Compounding the seasonality impact, he added that hotels and tourism have been affected by cancellations tied to international trade tensions “Because of this time of the year, it is slow, but something that we’re expecting. And then, coupled with the tariff war that’s was going on, some of them reported that there were some cancellations as a result of the tariffs,” said Mr Woods.

The Central Bank’s report on July’s economic developments revealed higher-spending stopover tourism arrivals declined by 1.3 percent during the 2025 first-half as The Bahamas’ most important industry generated “healthy but moderated activity”.

The Central Bank blamed the modest slowdown in land-based visitors on “constrained capacity”, meaning a lack of hotel and other room inventory able to accommodate visitor demand for the destination.

Nevertheless, Mr Woods expressed cautious optimism for the winter season. He said although stopover visitors are currently down he anticipates that arrivals will start to increase later this year and the momentum will carry through to next spring.

“It normally starts to pick up for Thanksgiving. We’ll have that Thanksgiving week where things pick up and then it kind of dips off until the second week in December. Then it picks up going into the Christmas until pretty much into spring. So hopefully things will pick up like usual,” said Mr Woods

Atlantis planned the temporary closure of its Coral Towers complex from August 17. Vaughn Roberts, the Atlantis executive vice-president of administration and strategic initiatives, in an e-mail response to Tribune Business inquiries confirmed the temporary closure although he provided few other details while suggesting it was consistent with actions taken in prior years during the slower part of the tourism calendar.

“Yes, the Coral Towers will temporarily close after August 17,” Mr Roberts said. “This is not unusual at all. For the past 20 years Atlantis has used this shoulder season to reduce some operations. This year, we will also finish some plumbing repairs which were suspended earlier due to high occupancies.”